Now is the right time for brands to invest in marketing technology in order to support business continuity planning.
In light of the pandemic, marketing leaders across industries keep their targeted focus on investing their budgets – especially in the marketing technology stack. This would help in driving strategic impact and business continuity. In its essence, experts believe marketing budgets are the ultimate expression of strategy.
Martechvibe recently surveyed top CMOs in the Middle East to understand the extent to which the pandemic affected the geography in its “State of the Martech Survey”. It has been found stakeholders are recognizing the significance of investing now in martech. The majority of marketers are keeping around 11-20% of their marketing budget allocated towards technology.
After surviving the uncertain market in 2020, businesses are well aware of the diligence prerequisite to stay afloat when communication channels and funds consistently fade. It is no secret that restricted mobility, lay-offs, plunging audience confidence, and the sinking GDP has led to a rapid decline in market activity.
In this context, Cristina Bravo Olmo, VP of Marketing at Sigma Computing, explained – “Marketers have traditionally tracked Campaign Performance, Marketing Spend Attribution, and Customer Journey 360, but as budgets shrink during recession times, marketers are under even more pressure to show an optimized spending strategy, not to mention taking on a more active role in retaining customers and expanding their engagement.”
Currently, most brands are in a dilemma as CMOs are anxious – as a result, new launches are coming to a halt. Since budget cuts remain a concern, it could be compensated by adopting smarter technology and reestablishing strategies to maintain customer connection. No wonder this unprecedented digitization has enabled this transformation, making leaders realize that leveraging the available data could be their best bet.
Hence, brands have accepted this is the right time to invest in Martech, and the technologies support analytics. Cristina Bravo also added, “As we head into a year with more uncertainty, real-time access to data becomes even more critical, and so does continuous visibility into not only the key marketing metrics we’re used to reporting on but a few new ones as well.”
Given the current marketplace situation, businesses are adopting an agile approach to delivering more in this this fast-changing, challenging marketplace. Besides, experts noted collaborations could help marketers to overcome certain technology integration and utilization aspects. This could ramp up innovative use cases and advanced technologies.
Clearly, uncertain times create opportunities for new business ideas – this pandemic has also enabled global digital transformation and innovations. The only way brands can sustain in such economic turmoil is by staying agile. Indeed, many enterprises have resorted to brand diversification in order to stay relevant amid the dynamic times.
